european

This is one of those books I wish I could give six or even seven starts. This is not only a book about great art; it is itself a beautiful work of art. The care lavished in making this book shows from the beautifully decorated slipcase to the wonderfully textured covers (my kids say they feel furry), to its large format and glorious reproductions. There are many foldouts showing large-scale works in broad sweep and even full-page reproductions of details of works shown in the book.

While the artwork shown is dazzling to the eye and overwhelming to the mind, the articles illuminating the works are first rate as well. One really nice feature of the articles is that there are marginal listings of the plates and figures discussed in each paragraph so it is easy to find text related to the images in which you are interested.

There are two volumes and over 1,300 pages. Volume 1 begins with a brief essay on Florence's prelude to greatness (59 B.C. 0 A.D. 1200). Then the book is organized into sections of varying size: Civic Price and Prosperity (1200 - 1340), An Age of Crisis (1340-1400), Images of a Free Republic (The Early 15th Century), and The Era of Cosimo De' Medici (1430-69). Volume two has: Lorenzo Il Magnifico (1469-92), The End of the Republic (1492-1530, and ends with The Medicean Principate (1530 - c. 1600). Each of these larger sections is organized in the same way - Architecture, then sculpture, and then painting. It is quite fascinating to watch how tastes and techniques evolve over the centuries.

There is also a glossary, bibliography, a section on the photographer and authors, an index and photo credits.

This isn't a book you will likely read from beginning to end. It is almost an ocean you will want to spend time exploring for years in order to take in all that it has to offer. It is almost impossible to not take away something new every time you open its magnificent pages. This is a real treasure for your library. I know is one in mine.

An amazing book! Elegant, informative, photos and history that just won't quit. The only downside is that this book (there are 2 volumes actually) is so large it is hard to manage. I got a copy for my 10 year old granddaughter for a trip we are taking this Summer. She has been dazzled and is working her way through (finding the photos that attract and then diving into the chapter text). It has also become an addiction for me. If you are going to Florence, get this book and read it!!

Clearly this publication was a newsworthy event when it was first issued, garnering praise from the New York Times Book Review andthe Washington Post alike. Now these magnificent slipcased volumes are making news once again.Nothing else has changed about this popular monument of scholarly and publishing history and winner of the prestigious Prix Vasari in France. Matching an elegant and sophisticated text by three leading art historians with more than 700 glorious color photographs and another 854 duotones and architectural drawings, The Art of Florence immerses us in the creative life of the city that gave birth to the Renaissance.

This important and uncommonly beautiful publication gracefully links the city's architecture, sculpture, and painting to its rich social fabric and dramatic political life. The Art of Florence is truly a masterpiece...

Georg Trakl is the greatest German poet most english readers have never heard of. Most of his best poetry dates from the period just before and during his service in the Austrian Army during the First World War and this makes him a brief contemporary of Rilke. However, while Rilke's verses are each a world of incandescent beauty and spiritual profundity, Trakl's are intimations of death, decay and expressions of a world trapped in a cycle of hell. His poems are intensely expressionistic, dark and powerful. Simko's translation is excellent; though he makes a few word choices from the German that might be open to debate, he does an excellent job of preserving the poems' structure while transmitting their power in English. My only quibble is that I would have liked it if the selection of poems was broader.

This is a very fine book of translations. To read Georg Trakl in German, of course, is far better. His German is extroadinarily beautiful. Trakl was a magnificent poet; I would say one of my absolutely favorite poets. His techniques are marvelous. He comes from, and surpasses, the lineage of such master technicians as Edgar Allen Poe, and Charles Baudelaire. He wrote poetry as if he were composing music, modulating colors and emotional content rather than tones and harmonies. One has the sense that he was divinely inspired. His work is miraculous.

In 1914, my great uncle died in a Cracow sanitorium--the causeof death was overdose on narcotics, most probably a suicide. Throughmy earlier years, I was read my uncle's poetry at bedtime and warned of the danger that awaits the poet in this cruel heartless world. As a teenager, I experimented with poetry yearning to transcend the souless quest for social mastery that is adolescence. Finally, upon the eve that I was to lose my arm in an effort to attain a Villonesque apprehension of the reality of the gallows, I was approached by the ghost of my great Uncle, Georg Trakl, who recited to me his last poem, Grodek--whereupon my desire to versify became a crest of shame. . .for I was a player of games where he was a player of the sacred flute of pan. . .My silence is a song in reverence to the author of the poem Grodek

Baudelaire is credited, along with Whitman and Dickinson, with being the inventor of modern poetry. I wish someone would actually explain why modern poetry begins with him. (email anyone?)

But this book really is great. Get the Everyman's Pocket Poet's version. It's got all (or almost all, I haven't counted) of Baudelaire's masterpiece "Les Fleur Du Mal," in a good translation by Richard Howard (though also check out Norman Shapiro's). And it has selections from Michael Hamburger's wonderful translation of Baudelaire's prose poems, "Le Spleen Du Paris." The best of these is "GET DRUNK," or "Enivrez-vous!" It begins:

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters; that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing. ....

Baudelaire was full of dark energy like that. It disgusts and attracts. When it gets tiresome--and, like too much honey and too much Delacroix, reading about maggots eating lovers' flesh, will get tiresome--just put it down. When you pick it up you'll get some fresh insights. How fresh? As fresh as the in simile B. uses in "the Vampire": "bind[ing] me . . . as gambler to his winning streak." Nicely done. Plus the book is small so you can sneak it into work and easily goof off.

this translation was produced by a contemporory American poet Richard Howard, whose poems were included in the Norton Anthology of English Poetry. - English is my third language. - I agree with the review of Howard's version in 'Baudelaire in English'.

the "Everyman's" series is the best stocking stuffers ever created. I am a bit of a Baudelaire buff, and I must say, this small version is perhaps my favorite. There is not much else to say. I have spent the time sorting through the poorly translated, badly misquoted versions of Flowers of Evil. Learn from my mistake. Pass by the frilly, big, seventeen color dustjacket editions and buy this little guy. It will not dissapoint you. Good day.

Jan Brett's illustrations are so colorful and richly drawn that you could tell the story without the words if you wanted to. Her illustrations are magical.
This book is a wonderful telling of the fairy tale. The true meaning of the tale comes shining through. The illustrations bring life to the printed words.
You will love this book.

Jan Brett's books are always richly and beautifully illustrated. There is always a little extra "story" in the illustrations. In this one, you will be watching the animal servants throughout the book. Pay close attention to the tapestries in the background to see who these animals really are. My favorite are the monkeys. This version is very much like the original French fairy fale, and is well told.

I got this book years ago when I worked for the publisher. I've given this book as a gift many times. The illustrations are just breathtaking and whimsical. You will find yourself stopping and searching the pictures in the middle of the story. The story is very nicely done and my kids enjoy it much more than the Dineyized version storybook they have.

This is a fairly good book, although I didn't think so on first looking at it. I bought it having done little research into my other options (e.g., Princeton Review, Cliffs AP, etc.), and I discarded it soon after buying it.

However, I picked it up again a couple weeks before the AP exam to review (I had also since bought two other AP Euro books, Princeton Review's and Cliffs AP's; I recommend the latter, but not the former) and discovered that it's actually a very good book. I especially liked the practice tests, which seemed very authentic to me (I just glanced at the free-response questions) and the auxiliary material, such as a list of historical movies.

I had 4 Euro books. REA, Arco, Princeton, and Barron's.
All four had their strong points. I'll list those:

Arco

A great review book. Has a concise and quick review. The timelines at the end of each chapter are great to get the idea of when everything occurred. The test were real good too.

Princeton

If only getting one book, this would probably be the one. Longer reviews than Arco but shorter than REA. Bolds keywords which is really good. This book probably had the best questions matching the test.

REA

This book has a lot of information. Longest and most detailed by far. It is like a textbook. It has six tests. The tests are almost all fact based. It is a very good book. THis book and Arco are good counterparts.

Barron's

It only has one review. The reviews aren't very lengthy. Only good thing about this book is that it has questions about each section after the chapters. It helps with the class preparing for specific tests. Only advantage this book has over the others.

i've used closly 3 AP euro books, and this is BY FAR the best one. it has the perfect amount of detail not a ridiculous amount but defently enough, and coveres all the topics to perfection. the author barber still teaches AP euro and from what i've read his students do great on the test. i take the test this may and i'm hpoing to do very well thanks mostly to this book.

J.J. Pollitt is one of the most respected scholars of ancient Greek art, and with good reason. His analyses are clear, well-written, cautious, and highly logical. Art and Experience is a classic (!) work of Pollitt's early career. It is an authoritative and engaging introduction to the history of art in ancient Greece, focusing on the Classical period (fifth and fourth centuries BC). The book assumes a general familiarity with some ancient history, philosophy, and literature, so it might be most useful for students or enthusiasts of classical culture who feel that their understanding of classical art is lacking. Nonetheless, the text is introductory enough that even a reader with no background in classics could find the book interesting and informative.
What makes this book a particularly valuable introduction to Greek art is that it aims to explain the motives and ideas behind the art rather than to provide the reader with a list of works and names of styles. Pollitt answers the question of why Classical Greek art looks like it does, and he thus gives his reader a framework for understanding individual works.
I can level only two criticisms at the book, and they are both relatively picky. The first is that, because of the brevity of the book and its intended non-specialist audience, some of Pollitt's conclusions seem to me like logical leaps, and some of his arguments seem too summary to be fully convincing. I would have preferred a more comprehensive treatment with fuller explanations--something along the lines of Paul Zanker's Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. As an introduction, however, the extent of the arguments in Art and Experience is sufficient. My second criticism is that Pollitt at times reveals more personal value judgements regarding the art of ancient Greece than I thought were necessary or appropriate. This is no doubt in part the product of the period in which the book was written, when value judgement still played some role in the teaching of art history (it has since largely been abandoned). It also may relate to the intended audience: I am sure that some readers will be interested to hear what traditional considerations have made art historians consider certain works to be "great." At the same time, readers should be wary of Pollitt's negative statements about some of the art (e.g., Hellenistic sculptures of children). The value of such art has recently been reevaluated by many art historians, including Pollitt himself, and the works do not deserve the dismissive tone apparent in Art and Experience.
On a final note, readers should keep in mind that this book is intended to cover only a brief (though significant) period in the history of ancient Greek art. Because of its scope, this book does not provide a "grand tour" of all famous Greek art--works like the Nike (or Winged Victory) of Samothrace are not covered. While Art and Experience is a great way to begin an exploration of the art and culture of ancient Greece, for a full picture one must consult additional sources. I highly recommend following Art and Experience with Pollitt's masterful (and more scholarly, though still quite accessible) Art in the Hellenistic Age.

Knowing little of Greek art, I happened upon this book in my shelves (an old college textbook belonging to my husband). I was pleased and impressed with this overview of Classical Greek art. Pollitt covers the main strands of development in architecture, sculpture, and painting and places the works firmly in the context of the historical events and cultural atmosphere of their times. As a result, I came away with an increased appreciation and understanding of the quality and value of Classical Greek art and of the interconnection between art and larger society in ancient Greece.

[let this man speak for himself...]
A thoughtful observer of these events, like
Aeschylus, could not but have felt uneasiness.
Were the Greek cities and the factions within
them being drawn, through their quest for power
even at the expenses of principle, into the
cycle of *hybris*, *ate*, and *nemesis* which
they themselves had seen in the undoing of the
Persians? In a world where Zeus punished
*hybris*, where men reaped the fruits of their
own actions, were they sowing the seeds of
their own downfall?
"...be mindful, men of Greece and Athens,
lest one among you, disdaining in his
mind the fortune of the present, and
lusting after more, waste the great
blessings he has..."
the ghost of Darius had said in the *Persians.*
These fears, and with them the vivid memory
of what destruction actually means (particularly
in Athens,which had been sacked and ruined by
the Persians) must have been strong motivating
forces in the creation of the serious and
meditative character of so much Early Classical
art. The "Aspasia," the Charioteer of Delphi,
and even the very early "Blond Boy" from the
Athenian acropolis all seem to be attempts to
embody the ideals of thoughtful restraint and
responsibility which the Greeks were so frequently
prone to forget. (pp. 26-27)
* * *
The fallen warrior [sculpture] from the east
pediment [of the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina] is
another matter. As life ebbs away and he sinks
toward the earth, he tries futilely, sword (now
missing) in hand, to raise himself. His eyes
narrow as his consciousness fades; his mouth is
slightly open as his breathing grows difficult;
he stares at the earth. His enfeebled movements
contrast poignantly with his massive physical
frame in which, for practically the first time,
the individual details of the musculature are
fused and unified by a softening of the lines
of division between them, and by increasingly
subtle modulation of the surface from which one
senses the presence of a unified physical force
emanating from within the body. The sculptor
who conceived the figure had obviously thought
carefully about exactly what it meant. He must
have asked himself what it must really be like
when a powerful warrior is wounded and falls.
What does he feel? How should we feel? And
what meaning is there in our feeling? (pp.19-20)
* * * * * * * * *
There are irritations in this work...amidst the
riches. Pollitt seems to find no inspiration in
the *Diskobolos* statue by Myron at all...devotes
little space to it except to mention its "rhythmos,"
but, incredibly, nothing about its beauty and the
idealization of the harmonic development of the
musculature of the male body by an athlete.
And Pollitt has the bias of "reason" and
"rationality" as the supposed prime virtues of
Greek thought and art...over the mystical.
Yet, if divine inspiration of poets and
artists is not a mystical experience, then
what is? And the Greeks certainly seem to
have subscribed to that belief early on.
* * * * * * * * *

simultaneously one of the saddest and most hopeful books i have ever read, this is an account of gerard de nerval's descent into insanity and his frantic search for something beyond what the positivists offer, a "spirit world". nerval obsesses over an actress who barely knew he existed, idealizing her to a seriously nutty point--but during all this he visits funerals, graveyards other places, apparently believing he is in touch with something metaphysical. i read this book awhile ago but i do remember his reference to his rejection by the woman, aurelia:"one's only option after these kinds of events is whether to die or go on living." touching, mystical, and sad.

that's the best way to put it: like condensed Proust. De Nerval's stories of place, love, and memory have found a permanent place in my heart. As other reviewers have noted, these stories seem the very definition of romanticism-- an unexpected quality in a writer often remembered most for his madness, eccentricity, and ultimately, suicide.

this edition by Exact Change Press is also worth remarking upon: the paper feels great, the design is perfect... hmm, running out of synonyms for "good."

all in all, a great volume by a lesser-known master.

Because this book shows what a real romantic means beyond the common meaning of "being in love". Because De Narval is a Romantic, he behaves trying to be the center of everything, no matter the price or the pride. He loves as a tool to make women move around him. His dreams are an extension of his life, so he can live any dream as real because the memorie of the real is the same as the memorie of the dream.

This is a little book for children that is based on the Russian Christmas tale about the old woman Baboushka who is visited one winter's night by three kings who are searching for a new born child. They ask her to come with them but she can't, saying that she has to finish her chores. Later, bearing gifts, she desides to search for the kings and the babe herself. She visits houses asking about the babe and leaves gifts behind. This becomes the basis for a Russian Christmas tradition. The illustrator of the book was Nicholas Sidjokov and the book won the 1961 Caldecott Medal for best illustration in a book for children. His illustrations enhance the telling of this old Russian Christmas story.

Baboushka and the Three Kings won the Caldecott medal as the best illustrated American children's book in 1961. Stylistically, these images will remind you of stained glass windows and the abstraction of Egyptian murals with Byzantine faces. The pages are done in five colors only (black plus blue, yellow, an orange-red, and green). The result gives the book a religious tone that makes you imagine you are reading from an illuminated manuscript done during the middle ages. All that is missing are the gold highlights.

The story picks up on the Biblical tale of the three kings coming from the East following the star to the birth of Christ. The three kings have lost their way in the snow in Russia, and ask the old peasant lady, Baboushka, to help them. After hearing of their pilgrimage, she wants to finish her chores first, and spend the night resting in her warm cottage before starting out. She invites the three kings and their retainers to join her for the night. They politely decline, not wanting to miss His birth.

The next morning, Baboushka repents and decides to bring gifts to the Christ child as well. But so much snow has fallen that she cannot find their trail. She goes from village to village hoping for word of the three kings, but finds nothing. Eventually, she gives her gifts to the children along the way.

"And it is said that every year, at the season when the birth of the Child was first heralded, Baboushka renews her search across that land with new hope." "And it is said that every year little children await the coming of Baboushka." "They find joy in the poor but precious gifts she leaves behind her in the silent night."

The book points out rather well that when opportunity knocks, one had better take immediate action or possibly rue the consequences for a lifetime. But the repentence can still yield important benefits for the proscrastinator and those who know her or him.

After you and your child know this story well, you should share with your child examples you have seen where waiting was a mistake. To balance that message, also share some stories where waiting was a good idea. In this way, you can help your child prepare to perceive and act on good opportunities that require quick action.

This book obviously will raise the question of what this has to do with Santa Claus from your child, so be ready with your answer for that, as well.

Be generous as you can possibly be in your support of others and always active in seeking God's truth.

Baboushka and the Three Kings is a book of hope and wonder. It has a simple moral: reach for the stars and follow your heart. This is an inspirational story to read.

Mayakovsky was one of the foremost futurist poets of the early 20th centuary. He wrote anguished (and mildly egocentric) pieces about being alone and unrequited in love. He also wrote political poems that were supposed to moblize the workers and shock the borgeosie establishment. This book is worth buying for the two epics "A cloud in trousers" and "The backbone flute" alone. The other poems are the icing on the cake, sounding off his thundering poetic voice. His final poem, "Past one o'clock.." starkly contrasts the others with it's muted depression. He would include part of it in his suicide note, changing the line "now you and I are quits" to "now life and I are quits." The Bedbug is a savage satire of Soviet society, and (had he not shot himself) would probably have gotten him arrested during the imminent Stalinist purges. After his death, Mayakovsky was lauded by Stalin. His pro-Bolshevik political verses were glorified and proudly shown off by the state, whilst his other poems and satirical plays were quietly supressed. Get this book if you want to see every side of Mayakovsky, and not just the one that has been publicized for years as propaganda.

His verses are curses,
His words are sharp swords,
His phrases are races
Of animal herds,
He slashes and bashes,
He kicks and he bites,
The world of the uselessness,
Bleeds and than dies.

Well, I love pre-Revolution Russian literature, so I guess I'm a little biased towards this book, but it really is good. Even the introduction is fascinating and inspiring if you ask me.

I read the Beginnings of Western Sceince as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I had the extreme priviledge of taking two history of science courses from the author, who is also an absolutely outstanding professor. (And also one of the two or three most knowledgeable people in the world in the history of medieval science) This is by far the most comprehensive text on the history of ancient and medieval science that is out there. You might not believe it, but there aren't even a lot of other texts that cover half of what is discussed here period, let alone any that are this polished and concise. This book not only covers the development of western science from ancient times throught the Middle Ages, but it also considers the religious, and philosophical roots of this development. This book is masterfully written in that it provides a tremendous amount of detail, and yet is accessible to anyone that is an educated and interested reader. I cannot recommend this text highly enough.

Also Recommended: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn

In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn discusses the importance of history and its relationship to science, the changing views of how historians view past scientific achievements, the role of scientific method in science, and the nature and foundations of scientific revolutions.

I had to read this book because I'm currently taking a history of science class taught by the author at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and I just want to say it's excellent. It is clear, concise and (best of all from a student's point of view) not boring. It teaches you so much about looking at things in context. This is a great book from a great professor.

I have read many, many histories of science, but this is far and away the best I have read.